


Now can we tell them?

by Keenir



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, Ending borrowed from an old Tumblr art meme, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Loki Angst, Mischief and Mistletoe 2015, Movie Reference, Remember that line in the first THOR movie?, Sif Angst, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5502140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki and Sif are always the last to both know...at least in one regard: they each know how they feel, but its the teeny detail of sharing their feelings...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now can we tell them?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladylaufeyson1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylaufeyson1/gifts).



"Now can we tell them?" Fandral asks.

"No," Volstagg says.  "They'll figure it out for themselves."

"I hope so.  This is getting painful to watch."

* * *

"Who is next?" Thor shouts, swinging Mjolnir around in circles.

"Me!"

Thor turns and sees who it is.  "Beta Ray Bill.  Do you truly think yourself capable of besting me in battle?"

Beta Ray steps from the stands onto the training sands, two broad toes on either foot, large white eyes set in his face.   "Is this battle, or training?  Or are Asgardians too simple-minded to tell the difference?"

"Mind your tongue, Korbonite.  You are the last of your kind, so I will go easy on you."

His long face smiled.  "Then let us remove the weapon from your hand," and Beta Ray held out his open hand.

Mjolnir flew from Thor's hand to Beta Ray's, who flung the Hammer skywards.  "Still want to fight?"

"I do not fight cheaters," Thor said, stomping off the training sands.

"Any challengers?" Beta Ray asked, looking around him.

"I do," Sif said, stepping onto the training sands.  "Or do you fear to fight a woman?"

"Of course not - I'm not Asgardian."

From the stands, Loki watched as Sif and Beta Ray punched and kicked at one another, bunny-hopping over swipes intended to knock one off their feet, heads dodging moves intended to incapacitate a person.  Loki winced when Beta Ray's swinging of himself and Sif landed them both in the sands with Sif's arm at a funny angle.

"Give up?" Sif asked.

"No," Beta Ray said.

"You do realize you're not winning."

"Are we counting points, or sparring?"

Sif nodded, and knocked Beta Ray on his ass with a move that would have ripped off his ears, if he had any.  "How was that?" she asked him with a smile.

He grinned back.

Where he stood, Loki could only watch.  _Sif would kill me if I intervened.  Besides, she appears to be enjoying herself, even with her arm like that._

When the match was over, and both participants were asked to leave the sands so they could get medical attention - by order of Volstagg, who outranked everyone present who was not royalty - Loki rushed over to Sif.  "Are you - Can I help?" Loki asked.

"Please," Sif said, flopping her arm towards him.  "I think it just needs to be popped back into my shoulder."

Loki nodded, and made sure not to let her see how pleased he was that she was entrusting him with her healing - _she might misread, and never again trust me anywhere near her._   He placed his hands on the wrist of her limp arm.

Sif felt the magical heat spread from her wrist to her shoulderblades, hottest where it was concentrating to slide the bones and muscles back into their proper places.  More importantly, she felt another heat spread up from her wrist where he was touching her, going to her heart and her throat.  _All combined, its nearly enough to induce me to rush back onto the sands and get it dislocated again.  But that would make Loki suspicious...or worse, offended enough to refuse to treat me any more._

So she said nothing but a perfunctory "Thank you," when he was done, and gave an awkward curtsey as his title deserved.

* * *

After the battle with a wicked enemy on a distant world in the Nine Realms, "Why did you jump in front of him?" Sif wanted to know.

Lying face-down, Loki did not answer; mostly because _'I didn't - I fell'_ sounded to him like pleading or making excuses, however truthful they were.  "Ow," he said, both from the pain and to disguise any sound he may've made when he realized Sif was pulling up his shirt.

"Tch," Sif said.  "Though I'm surprised Mjolnir didn't do more damage to you, Loki."

 _Oh, so it only feels like my spine is a loop now?_   "How fortunate."

"Bill must have slowed Mjolnir when he realized you were in its flight path - even Thor can't do that, yet."

"Thor isn't here," Loki said to cover his gasp when Sif touched his back with her fingertips.  Intellectually, he knew she was only checking things for where would be the best spot to rub the healing oils, _but still..._

"I know, he has a cold so he has to stay in Asgard," Sif said.  "Luckily, Bill can use Mjolnir."

 _Yes, lucky us that Korbinites crafted the Hammer billions of years ago in the service of the Dark Elves, giving them the ability to use it whether they're worthy or not._   And that was when Sif's oil-coated fingers began to massage Loki's back.  He bit his lip and tried doing calculations in his head, but the numbers kept equaling a valiant young warrior woman whose eyes shone like suns.

Sif was just grateful that Loki could not look at her, _for them he would see the redness of my face,_ _and it has nothing to do with injury.  Well, not with **my** injury,_ which only made her redder up and down her throat and across her ears.

"I have to do this until the oil is fully soaked into your skin," Sif said, trying to keep her voice level.  _I may be one of Asgard's greatest warriors - or I will be - but I don't deserve to be rubbing Loki's royal back..._ and tried to keep her eyes from sliding over to his leather-clad backside.

"I understand," Loki said, savoring it, doing his best to keep his cool.  "Eir's orders, no doubt."

"Yes," Sif said, seizing on that excuse, true as it was.

* * *

 During the Vanir War, most Asgardian families returned to Asgard to take shelter.  Postwar, most of the families did not return to their homes, even when those worlds had not been rendered unfit or destroyed.  Those were the Inner Families.

The Central Families were those who had never left Asgard in the billions of years of its existence.  Aside from the royal family, it was primarily composed of innkeepers and meadmakers, weavers and ditchdiggers.

The Outer Families were those who had made their way back to their pre-war homes, and those who had built new homes after the Vanir were defeated.  Fishermen and birdcatchers, patrolmen and detonators figured heavily in their number.

King Bor had established the Brochmen Festival during the early years of the war.  Three long days and nights was its length throughout Odin's reign, one day and night for each set of Families.  And overseen by the Brochking, a mock ruler appointed to oversee festivities.

"Great fun, is it not, brother?" Thor asked, standing beside the throne.  "I mean, your majesty," with a respectful chuckle.

Loki, brochking for this year's festivities, said, "Yes."

"A joyful time," agreed Sigyn, the brochqueen.  _Three days done, one night left, and I have enjoyed all of it.  I don't imagine I'll ever see Prince Loki again outside of formal events, and I'm fine with that.  Besides, I know someone he'd be far happier with: one from one of my fellow Outer Families, and a near-neighbor of mine._   And Sigyn leaned in her throne to better watch that person's display of skill and bravery as Sif was one of the warriors being presented by her family to exhibit forms of combat which her family had mastered over the millennia and millennia.

 _Loki looks happy,_ Sif thought as she glanced at the temporary king and the woman who had been elected to be queen.  _That's the important part._   She knew Sigyn - the miner's daughter had grown up less than a planet's width away from her. _Sigyn looks at ease up there on the royal throne where Hild and Frigga and An and Ve once sat.  Looks like she actually belongs there_.  Humans had nightmares about going to school naked; Sif had once had a nightmare about sitting on the throne - _I would not ever belong there, best never to aspire to what I could not fit._

From where he sat, feeling the touch of Sigyn on his arm and knowing she was happy beside him, Loki thought, _All that I can offer Sif is a title and a life in relative luxury.  Sif doesn't want that, she doesn't want either of that.  I can think up missions and lay out strategies, but those are poor offerings when proposing marriage.  So I will hold my tongue and not say anything._   Loki forced a smile.

It was at that moment that Sif looked up at them from where she stood.  She saw Loki's forced smile.  _Playing nice.  I understand: it does not matter how I feel for someone as high as he.  I am low and unkept and dirty.  What can I offer Loki that others could not do better?  I am in line to inherit my grandfather's estate, but a hundred others stand to inherit it before me; and even then, it is no Gladsheim - mine would be rural and nowhere near as ornate and bookfull as the palace of Asgard._   Sif dipped her head before turning her full attention back to beating the tar out of her brother.

Sigyn looked from Loki to Sif and back again, and wondered, _Are you both blind?_

* * *

 "So much for that," Sif muttered once the throng of angry natives had given up and stopped chasing the two of them.

"Yes," Loki groaned.  _Yes, no doubt your beloved Beta Ray could have summoned a storm simply by raising a fist, great hammer or no hammer.  Or my mighty brother could have outdrank them all into a stupor.  Or..._ "You're limping, Sif," Loki said.

"I can make it to the extraction site," and she uttered a bitter curse at the makers of the roof of this world.  It was no figure of speech - ages ago, the Dwerrow had built atmospheric shields made of actual, physical walls, and encased several of their planets in such roofs.  Everything within was perfectly normal - rainfall, erosion, wind, all the things you find on planets...just with very very few places to enter or exit on a Bifrost.

Loki stopped where he was, which forced Sif to stop as well _\- that or admit that her hand was on my shoulder more to support me than to urge me onwards.  Nice as it was to have that there,_ when she removed it, so she could sit down on a dry log.  Loki swiftly gathered together suitable longtwigs, as all the branches of the right length or thickness had ant galls, thorns, or worse things.

Removing some string from his pack, Loki made a makeshift leg brace which would keep Sif from injuring herself further on this mission.  _Or that's the plan._ Thrilling as it was to be permitted to touch anywhere of Sif, thigh or otherwise, Loki worked as quickly as he could without sacrificing accuracy: she could still kill him with ease, even injured as she was.

 _He works so fast, making as little contact as possible, Sif observed.  If ever there was a ready-made excuse to touch me, surely this would be it, a perfect opportunity.   He has the greatest of manners, and the least inclination towards me._ "Is that the knot you're going to use?"  _Surely there are better knots in your knowledge...such as the ones you can see I had already done in binding my leggings._

"It is, yes," Loki said to her question.  _There are finer knots, more ideally suited to this sort of situation - making a temporary leg brace, I mean - but that type is already in use on and around your legging, and I dare not permit myself even the appearance of looking long and hard at them to use them as a model._

"Fine," Sif grumbled.

_You want this over quickly, so I shall oblige._

It was not long - less than a full day - before they reached the extraction point, where Fandral was waiting for them.   "What happened?" Fandral asked, seeing what a state the two were in.

"Somebody forgot to throw lightning," Sif grumbled.

* * *

"My mission," Beta Ray confided to Loki in the bar, "is to sneak onto Midgard and recover one of the Dark Elf superweapons," and he took a long swig of his mead.

"The Aether is loose? Loki jested.  "Or has a third Mjolnir been found?"  Beta Ray had one, Thor had another; one had been named Stormbreaker, the other had not been given a name and thus was addressed by what manner of elvish tool it was.

"Blue Cube.  According to the bedtime stories my da told me, it possesses phenomenal cosmic powers, yet with an itty bitty living space.  Also that it tends to seek out fledgling empires who want to flex their muscles."

Loki thought that, _Great, you're going to go hunting for something that seeks out nations that want to prove themselves.  And this is going to prove you to Sif even more than you already have.  "_ Would you be terribly offended if I accompanied you on this mission?" Loki asked.

"Thor being his usual egocentric self," Beta Ray guessed.  "Or have you run out of books to read?"

Loki was quiet for a bit, staring at the head on his newly-arrived mead.  "I need to get out and...do something," he added quietly.

Beta Ray downed another mug of mead, and considered getting something milder, like beer.  _Curse the storm, Loki; how blind the two of you are.  Had Sif lamented any plainer about the woes of her heart, Loki, even you would have heard her - I suspect even Lorelei_ did hear _her.   Though she never outright said it was you she longs for, I know it has to be you.  And Sif has no idea what more she can do to catch your eye and draw your soul toward hers, which according to her leaves her only one thing in her life: combat training alongside her friends._ "I would welcome your assistance on this mission, my friend," Beta Ray said.  "But these are humans, and surely the two of us would make it unsporting."

"Fairness has a place on every battlefield," Loki agreed.  "Very well, I and the others will see you upon your safe return.  Much success, my friend."

"And many successes to you as well, my friend," Beta Ray said to Loki.

Beta Ray Bill never returned.  He was first an imprisoned guest of HYDRA, then their prisoner, and postwar custody was transferred to the SSR who retained possession of him until well after Director Coulson's Reformation of SHIELD.

* * *

 "Betray him, and I'll kill you," Sif said with her blade at his throat.

"Its good to see you too, Sif," Loki said.

Fandral mouthed "Now can we tell them?"

Volstagg shook his head. _That would just be cruel, to break it to them at a time like this._

* * *

"WELCOME!" Thor boomed from atop the throne. 

Fandral and Volstagg, having escorted the visitors to the throne room, took up a position, each facing the other.  Hogun was watching their six.

"Hi," Scott Lang said.

Jessica Jones said nothing, just looked, taking in distances and angles and locations of doors and windows and potential makeshift weapons.  T'Challa was doing the same.

Sif ran from the bottom step to the throne, to just a meter shy of the trio.  She asked, "The Avengers could not come themselves?  _Coul_ could not strain himself to escort his prisoner - my friend! - to Asgard?"

"We are Avengers," Jessica Jones said mildly, while Loki appeared beside Sif.  _Sorta beside.  Equilateral triangle between him, her, and us._

"Of course," Thor said diplomatically.  "Forgive us, we are accustomed to Stark and Rogers."

"They were...busy," Scott says.  _They weren't sure about the wisdom of handing over somebody that SHIELD and HYDRA both felt was too dangerous to set free._  

"This is your friend and ally," T'Challa said.

Beta Ray Bill, standing between the three Avengers, raised his long now-gaunt head, off-color eyes taking in all the changes that had befallen the throne room of Gladsheim in Asgard.

"All yours now," Jessica said, stepping aside, patting him on the arm as he trudged past her.

Beta Ray Bill held out his arms, half for support, and half for a hug.  Sif stepped in, and then so too did Loki, if a mite reluctant to interfere in a reunion between Lady Sif and Lord Beta Ray.

 _Stark'll definitely be upset he missed this,_ Scott suspected, _too easy to imagine some of the things that he'd blurt out._

When the reunion hug ended, and all three of them had their arms to themselves once more, Sif asked, "How are you, now that you're home?"

 _Loki looks like he'd rather be anywhere but here,_ Jessica observed.

"Displeased," Beta Ray said.  "Though that is easily remedied."

"Always good to hear," Loki said.

Beta Ray slapped Loki -

"Stark will be displeased he missed that," T'Challa said under his breath.

\- and Sif.

"What's going on?" Jessica wanted to know as those slapping hands grapped the hair of the two who had been slapped, and turned them.  _Oh you have to be kidding me._

Beta Ray brought their heads together, but not quickly - he valued his friends too much for that.

 _I guess Asgard does have the 'now kiss' meme,_ Scott mused.  _Looks like I lost that bet_.

Loki closed his eyes, not fighting.  _Sif isn't pulling away or pushing me off of her.  Not even now that Beta Ray has let go of us._

Sif let her eyes take in all of Loki.  _He looks happy, near enough to as happy as I feel, doing this that I had not thought I would get to do.  He doesn't seem offended or repulsed or shuddering,_ though a different sort of shudder passed from one of them to the other.

"Come on, get a room," Jessica told them.

"Took long enough," Fandral said.

"I told you we didn't need to tell them," Volstagg said.

Jessica looked at them and shook her head.

**Author's Note:**

> According to Time Team, a broch is a structure with an inner pair of walls, an outer pair of walls, and a corridor between the pairs. (there was more to it, but that picture helped with a scene here)


End file.
